West Bank/Palestine

This is a long one so props to everyone that makes it to the end! 

Our tour to Hebron, the largest Palestinian city in the West Bank was the highlight of our trip to Israel/Palestine. Our tour guide was Palestinian through a company called Green Olive Tours and as much as he tried to be impartial, we saw first hand some of the injustices going on in Palastine. The term Occupied Palastine is much more meaningful now. As a disclaimer, we would have loved to go on the same tour through the eyes of an Israeli Jew but unfortunately we didn't see that option and spending much of the rest of our time in Israel and a tour of Jerusalem with an Israeli, we feel we had gotten some insight from the other side already. 

We were picked up in Jerusalem but our tour didn't officially start until we picked up our tour guide from an area near Bethlaham which is a Palastinian territory since our guide isn't allowed into Jerusalam. On route to Hebron, our bus was boarded by Israeli soldiers more than once in a "flying" checkpoint where our passports were checked to ensure we were "internationals" and not Palestinians. We drove by the village where a 18 month old Palestinian child was burned alive and some violence broke out a week before we arrived.  It's very obvious to see what is an illegal settlement and what is a Palestinian home. Israel basically controls all the resources, roads, etc. They also control the water and when conflict breaks out, it is used as a weapon where water is cut off to Palestinian homes. So Palestinian homes will always have water tanks on the roofs and the settlers homes are usually red roofed, a more European style of building. 

In Hebron there are ~850,000 Palestinians and 550 Jews with over 2000 Israel soldiers protecting the only 550 settlers (roughly 4:1). Apparently most of the Jewish settlers are from Russia or the U.S. and are the most extremist Jews. Hebron is now divided into H1 (full Palestinian control) and H2 (Israeli control). Now we all asked, why would these 550 want to live there and why is Israel mobilizing all of these resources to protect only 550 people? Hebron is the site where Abraham and his family are buried and Abraham is sacred in both religions. After the 1994 massacre during prayers during the month of Ramadan, an American Jew entered the mosque and open fired on people praying that day. The official count was 29 people murdered and hundreds injured but that doesn't include the people killed by Israeli soldiers outside the mosque and during protests following the event. The man who open fired was beaten to death by people inside the mosque but he is now considered a martyr and people pay respects to his tomb. The Israeli military then  imposed a two-month curfew and closed down Shuhada Street in Hebron and now that main Street cannot be walked on by Palastinains although it's a main street that leads to the mosque and many Palastinian homes. We witnessed an extreme juxtaposition of the lives of a Palastinian and an Israeli woman. As a Palastinian woman came to the junction where she could not use this particular street to get to her destination with a young baby and her stroller, a kind teenager was summoned to lift the stroller up numerous stairs and across a cemetery which as we climbed the same stairs in the 38 degree heat, we were wiped. Not even 1 min later we watched an Israeli woman with her child in a stroller on the same street leisurely walking by as the mom was texting on her cell phone. 

After the aforementioned incident in 1994, the mosque was split up into part mosque and part synagogue where part of Abraham's tomb is in the mosque and the other part in the synagogue separated by bulletproof glass so they can't shoot at each other. The odd thing is that Palestinians get checked by Israelis before going into their own mosque but we saw with our own eyes younger Israeli males walking around with guns (non-soldiers). On that particular day, we weren't allowed into the synagogue unfortunately but we were told by our guide just to tell everyone we are Christians, if asked. On major Jewish holidays like Yom Kippur, the entire Mosque is converted into a synagogue but the opposite does not occur for occasions like Eid. 

During our tour we walked through a popular Palestinian market which had a barbed wire "roof" because there has been numerous instances where the Israelis that live above the market have thrown garbage, liquid waste and even feces on top of the people walking through the market. Really really sad. Even when we were there, we could see garbage on the "roof". This was put up upon recommendation of TIPH (Temporary International Presence in Hebron) that documents and reports what is happening in the area (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Temporary_International_Presence_in_Hebron)

We had lunch at a Palestinian person's house and a different family in need is chosen every Saturday for the lunch as we pay them directly for the meal. We had something that was basically like a mild biryani/pilau with yogurt and a side salad which again is like cutchumber (sp?!). The gentlemen's house we ate at has been through quite a lot to stay in his home including being on house arrest for 2 years, his wife being beaten so badly that twice she had a miscarriage at 4 months etc etc. He basically had a trailer park started on top of his house for someone high up in the Israeli military and the main road to his house is for Israelis only. He now has to show a permit to the Israeli solder to walk 100 meters on an Israeli road as he had to come get us as our Palestinian tour guide couldn't walk us to his house. A new soldier was patrolling the area and we were super worried that something would happen as there was a confrontation between the soldier and the gentlemen whose house we were eating at. If you're interested, we took a few videos of the random encounters where we were quick enough to capture it. Apparently it's much safer around when "internationals" are around as both sides are on their best behaviour. 

Another disturbing thing that we saw was graffiti on the street that Palestinians weren't allowed on that said "Gas the Arabs". After going through the very well done Holocaust museum called Yad Hashem in Jerusalem, that would have been the last thing you'd expect. Someone's comment was "the abused becomes the abuser" which you couldn't help but feel the same way when you saw what was going on first hand. With that being said, I would have loved to take the exact same tour of Hebron with an Israeli as there are always two sides to the conflict. 

I have many more stories but this post is getting quite lengthy. I hope to come back and add photos from my camera once they are uploaded.

On a tour of Old Jaffa city outside of Tel Aviv, where is one area that Muslims and Jews live harmoniously, I picked up something that I'd like to add here as its informative and also puts a positive end to this post.

"The Hamsa known in Islamic societies as the Hand of Fatima and in Jewish lore as the Hand of Miriam, serves as an Ancient talismanic way of averting the evil eye or more generally of providing a "protecting hand" or "Hand of God". Some sources link the significance of the the Five fingers to the five books of the Toorah, or to the five pillars of Islam. In recent years, some activists for Middle East peace have chosen to wear the Hamsa as a symbol of the similarities of origins and tradition between the Islamic and Jewish faiths."